Dodgers giving "Ferrari" time to cool wheels

Outfield super-prospect Yasiel Puig, who's frequently been hailed as the second coming of Bo Jackson, is beginning the season in the minors for extra seasoning. Also, quite likely, to buy time for the Dodgers. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
— AP

Outfield super-prospect Yasiel Puig, who's frequently been hailed as the second coming of Bo Jackson, is beginning the season in the minors for extra seasoning. Also, quite likely, to buy time for the Dodgers. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
/ AP

Not among the 750 fortunates who made Opening Day rosters was mega-prospect Yasiel Puig, who’s beginning the 2013 in Double-A, playing outfield for Chattanooga instead of the parent-club Dodgers at Petco Park next week.

Puig -- the 22-year-old sensation of spring training with his .526 average, three home runs, 11 RBI and linebacker-type (6-foot-3, 245) build and the sense that he might be the next Bo Jackson -- will be up soon enough.

The Cuban defector is getting his education in baseball economics, which served him nicely, given the $42 million he got from L.A. just so sign. For one thing, the Dodgers already have $330 million tied up in the starting outfield of Matt Kemp, Carl Crawford and Andre Ethier.

Showing that they haven’t completely lost their minds fiscally, the Dodgers can keep Puig away from free agency a year longer by keeping him on the farm for a month. Saying he had to tell Puig he “didn’t do anything wrong” to get demoted, manager Don Mattingly compared the prospect to a Ferrari.

"The motor's there, the wheels are there, the body's there," Mattingly said. "Everything's there. They just haven't painted it yet. You leave it out in the sun without any paint and it's going to get exposed."

Whiff-o-rama

Noting higher numbers of total strikeouts in each of the past seven seasons, the Elias Sports Bureau determined that the 2012 total of 36,426 was an all-time record, including at least 1,200 strikeouts by 18 of the 30 clubs. Until eight years ago, no more than two teams had posted 1,200 K’s in any one season.

The hurricane-like rise in major league strikeouts was the subject of a terrific piece in the New York Times by national baseball writer Tyler Kepner, starting with the last year's Brewers pitching staff that fell just two strikeouts shy of the MLB record set by the 2003 Chicago Cubs staff, and that was a Milwaukee club that didn’t even make the playoffs.

"When I was playing high school baseball, we didn't even have cable TV, and you're kind of thinking about Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn," said Josh Byrnes, only 42, the Padres general manager who was GM of the Arizona Diamondbacks team whose hitters set the all-time strikeout record of 1,529 in 2010. "Some of the home runs of the last 15, 20 years, that's kind of what you see if you're just watching 'SportsCenter.' You're not seeing a good at-bat. You're seeing the guy who hits the 420-foot homer."

The message? Well, it’s mixed. In winning 94 games and the AL West last year, the Oakland A’s broke the league record with 1,387 whiffs by hitters, to use the term loosely.

Give pitchers some credit, too.

"There's this influx of unbelievable arms," said Jason Giambi, now with the Cleveland Indians after four years with the Colorado Rockies. “I was telling guys in here, the N.L. West is a joke. Every guy on the mound is filthy. Every guy out of the bullpen throws 98."

Sawx-Yanks ... yawn

Since roughly the Turn of the Century, we sun-splashed, short-sleeved West Coast slobs have bemoaned the way Major League Baseball and the television folks have force-fed us the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox until we want to, well, hurl something against our oversized, high-def screens.

As if those were the only two clubs that anybody in their right minds would want to watch, seemingly each of their 19 annual games got prime time and more ESPN time than you could shake a 33-ounce stick at.

So it was particularly interesting that the “rivalry” game MLB and TV decided to open with was instead in the Lone Star State, the mighty Texas Rangers against the lowly Houston Astros. The occasion was Houston’s debut as an American League club.

"Sometimes we get criticized for having the Yankees and Red Sox on too much and we don't cover other things that happen around baseball," said Orel Hershiser, the former Los Angeles Dodgers great and Rangers coach who’s an ESPN baseball analyst. “We're kind of expanding our wings."

Oh, so that’s it.

Now, Hershiser’s always been a straight-shooting sort of fellow, well worthy of the benefit of the doubt. Can’t help but wonder, though, if those network “wings” instead weren’t just trying to flap away from a Yankees-Red Sox matchup that’s gone afoul. You'd look pretty stupid overhyping a season-opening matchup of two teams that may be vying for fourth and fifth place in the AL East this season.